TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — The Arizona Cardinals are playing so poorly at home, it would be understandable if they were seeing red.
On Sunday, they just saw orange.
That's because Denver fans and their orange shirts dominated the crowd at State Farm Stadium, making it feel like a home game for Broncos quarterback Bo Nix as he dismantled the Cardinals' defense in a 30-16 victory.
“It was great," Nix said. “It felt really comfortable.”
Obviously, that's not an ideal statement to hear from an opposing player.
The Cardinals have now lost 10 straight home games in a streak that's up to 407 days and the fan base is alternating between livid and apathetic. It's not just that the team is bad — it's that there's no long-term answer at quarterback, very few standouts on defense and the front office seems to have a reverse Midas touch, cursed by injuries and bad evaluations.
The mood is so sour in the desert that a billboard campaign was launched in the Phoenix area asking owner Michael Bidwill to sell the team, though there's no indication that's going to happen.
First-year coach Mike LaFleur came to the desert after three seasons as offensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Rams — one of the more successful franchises over the past decade — so he knows what well-run organization looks like.
He doesn't feel the Cardinals are far away, even if the results on the field tell a different story. The Cardinals have not advanced to the playoffs since 2021 and haven't won a postseason game since 2015.
“I like the humans and I like the men in that locker room,” LaFleur said. “But we need to get better.”
The Cardinals continue to get huge production from their group of tight ends, particularly All-Pro Trey McBride. The 26-year-old caught 10 passes for 111 yards, including a seven-yard TD that cut the deficit to 20-13 on Sunday. He's on pace for his third straight 1,000-yard season. Elijah Higgins also had three catches for 17 yards.
The Cardinals are moving the ball in the middle of the field, but are struggling to score touchdowns. They scored a TD on just one of five trips to the red zone against the Broncos and on one drive couldn't punch the ball into the end zone despite five opportunities from the 1-yard line.
This is after settling for six field goals in an 18-16 win over the Rams last week.
“It wasn’t an issue until seven days ago and now it’s an issue," LaFleur said. “We can clean that up.”
Bam Knight has run the ball well in the absence of star rookie Jeremiyah Love, who has missed the last two games with a sore ankle. Knight ran for 80 yards on 15 carries against the Rams and was good once again against the Broncos, gaining 48 yards on just seven carries. He might need more of a workload in the coming weeks, even when Love is ready to play.
The defense had some good moments, particularly early, but there were a handful of breakdowns that led to huge plays for the Broncos. Nix scored on a 62-yard touchdown run, RJ Harvey turned a short screen pass into a 52-yard touchdown and Marvin Mims Jr. caught a 47-yard pass to set up another TD.
Arizona is giving up 29.7 points per game, which is the most in the NFL.
Wide receiver Jalen Brooks is out for the season with a broken wrist. LaFleur said Love would return to practice Wednesday and could play this weekend against the Cowboys.
14 — That's the longest home losing streak in NFL history, set by the St. Louis Rams from 2008 to 2010 and the Dallas Cowboys in 1988 and 1989, according to research by Sportradar. The Cardinals need to beat either the Rams, Commanders, Eagles or Jets over the next four games at State Farm Stadium to avoid joining that group.
The Cardinals are on the road against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday.
See AP’s full NFL coverage here
Arizona Cardinals tight end Trey McBride (85) celebrates a touchdown against the Denver Broncos during the second half of an NFL football game in Glendale, Ariz., Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Arizona Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur reacts during the second half of an NFL football game against the Denver Broncos in Glendale, Ariz., Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Arizona Cardinals safety Budda Baker (3) hugs head coach Mike LaFleur after the Cardinals gave up a touchhdwon against the Denver Broncos during the first half of an NFL football game in Glendale, Ariz., Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
CORINTH, Miss. (AP) — President Donald Trump campaigned Monday in Mississippi, as he continued a closing midterm rally blitz that has highlighted Republicans' challenges ahead of an election that could drastically shift power in Washington and statehouses across the country.
“I'm here because Cindy’s doing great, but I just got to make sure. I can’t take a chance,” Trump told the crowd, his voice audibly hoarse, as he worked to boost Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who is facing a surprisingly stiff challenge from Democrat Scott Colom.
Colom was spotted at the rally site, too, creating the rare spectacle of Trump's staunchest supporters interacting directly with a figure the president would soon go on to denigrate as a “Marxist radical” and “fake" and “shameless phony who pretends to be a moderate” from the stage.
Mississippi, among the nation’s most reliably Republican states, is not where the GOP envisioned needing a late-October stop from the president. But Colom is one of many Democratic underdogs who have managed to expand the House and Senate battleground maps because of widespread voter discontent over inflation, the Iran war and other aspects of Trump’s second presidency.
He said he had planned to go to the rally site to listen to what was on Trump supporters' minds.
"They actually deserve a senator that will listen to them, that actually cares about what they think, actually cares about what they’re going through,” Colom said ahead of the president's arrival.
Trump's event kicks off a week of aggressive campaigning that will include more stops in states he won comfortably in 2024, including Texas, South Carolina and Iowa. Trump also plans to hold a rally Saturday in Salina, Kansas, officials announced late Monday, marking his second visit to the state in less than two weeks.
Top Democratic candidates and their surrogates were also greeting voters — more than 30 million of whom have already cast ballots, according to data collected by The Associated Press from election administrators across the country — as they try to end Republicans' threadbare majority in the House, take over a Senate majority that was once thought secure for Republicans and end the GOP’s national advantage in state capitals.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats' 2024 presidential candidate, campaigned in Wisconsin with Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who faces Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Trump ally, for governor. Crowley would be the state’s first Black governor if elected to lead the battleground state.
“This is a tight race because the stakes are so high,” Harris said at the event billed as a “Women for Crowley” rally.
Meanwhile, in Michigan, Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed distanced himself from an ad created by a political action committee called Rebellion PAC that blames high grocery prices on U.S. support for Israel.
“This ad is not affiliated in any way with the Abdul for Senate campaign,” a spokesperson for El-Sayed, Roxie Richner, said in a statement about the spot, which features a couple discussing U.S. support for Israel as they shop for groceries.
“Apparently it’s costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza,” the woman says.
The ad had been condemned by U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, who narrowly lost to El-Sayed in the Democratic primary.
The way to win Michigan “is not by blaming the high costs of our goods on the only Jewish homeland in the world,” Stevens wrote on X.
El-Sayed, who would be the country’s first Muslim senator, has denounced antisemitism while fiercely criticizing Israel for its military operations in Gaza — a position that has been a frequent point of attack for both Republicans and supporters of Israel in his party.
Vice President JD Vance returned to Kansas to stump for Sen. Roger Marshall, who finds himself in a tight contest with Democratic nominee and pastor Adam Hamilton. Hundreds of people were gathered inside the warehouse of a steel-fabricating company in north Topeka in a state where Democrats haven’t won a Senate race since 1932.
Marshall, who has raised far less money than Hamilton, told the crowd that Trump is on the ballot, even if his name doesn’t appear, because of how Democrats will thwart his agenda if they win control of Congress.
“Democrats are coming out like it’s a presidential year,” he said, calling on the GOP to match Democrats’ energy.
Jace Sullivan, a 50-year-old electrician from Topeka who describes himself as “85% Republican,” said Trump supporters need to “circle the wagons” and get out to vote.
Wearing a red “JD Vance for President 2028" shirt, he said he thinks Trump is rightly working to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
“Gas prices are high and it does suck, but it’s a means to an end,” Sullivan said.
Trump, at the Mississippi rally, said he had, in fact, expected gas prices to rise even higher than they had.
“It worked out fine and it’ll be over soon,” he said of the war with Iran.
Earlier, Vance was in Belgrade, Montana, to campaign with Republican Aaron Flint, who is facing Democrat Sam Forstag in the race for the state’s 1st Congressional District, and Republican Senate candidate Kurt Alme.
Despite the visits to ruby red states, Sen. Tim Scott, who serves as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told The Associated Press Monday that GOP candidates are “closing very strongly” in races across the country, including South Carolina, which Trump is set to visit for the second time in as many weeks to stump for GOP Sen. Darline Graham.
“One of the reasons why we will be in the majority is because he has invested the time and the energy on the campaign trail,” Scott said on the sidelines of U.S. Rep. Russell Fry’s 3rd Annual Freedom Fry event.
But it's Trump's visit to Mississippi that perhaps brings the midterm landscape into the sharpest relief with just a week of campaigning left.
To be sure, Hyde-Smith, who is vying for her second full term, remains the favorite in a state Trump won three times by an average of nearly 20 percentage points.
But Colom, a local prosecutor who would make history as Mississippi's first Black senator since post-Civil War Reconstruction, is looking to parlay inflation, Trump's lagging popularity and Hyde-Smith's mistakes into an upset.
Senate Democrats’ super PAC has been a late entry in the contest, with a $1.2 million investment. Mississippians have not chosen a new Democratic senator since 1947, and Democrats last won a Senate race there when that senator, the onetime segregationist John Stennis, won his last reelection in 1982.
In New York, meanwhile, one of the party’s most vulnerable House members pulled from Trump’s campaign playbook. Rep. Mike Lawler, who is in a tight race with Democrat Cait Conley in New York City’s northern suburbs, manned a McDonald’s drive-thru — mimicking something Trump did two years ago, even as Lawler has tried to emphasize his independence from the president.
Barrow reported from Atlanta and Colvin from New York. Associated Press reporters John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina; Laura Turbay in St. Paul, Minnesota; Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix; Seung Min Kim in Belgrade, Montana, and Anthony Izaguirre in New York contributed.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at Women for Crowley event Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., talks before President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Crossroads Arena, in Corinth, Miss., Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally at Crossroads Arena, in Corinth, Miss., Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
People watch as President Donald Trump's motorcade heads to a campaign rally in Corinth, Miss., Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Donald Trump yells as he arrives on Air Force One at Frederick W. Smith Airport, in Memphis, Tenn., Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, en route to a campaign rally in Mississippi. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Vice President JD Vance reacts after speaking at a campaign rally at Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport, Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, in Belgrade, Mont. (Finn Gomez/Pool Photo via AP)
Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, left, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, receives an embrace from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., at a campaign rally Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026, at Lincoln Park Middle School in Duluth, Minn. (AP Photo/Erica Dischino)
President Donald Trump arrives to speak during a campaign rally at McMorran Place Sports and Entertainment Center, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026, in Port Huron, Mich. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
